Hi all,
As I am (rather casually) working on a repro of the Wallace A466 & having printed resin prototypes of the hilt I was considering doing a bit of back garden bronze casting. However this is not something you want to try unprepared so I looked for folks well versed in the technique in Texas...and lo and behold, found that a 'swordcastingguy' (aka Greg Wenderski) was giving bronze & aluminium casting classes right at my front door.

A few Sundays ago I showed up with my 12 year old son at one of his classes, along with 30 others (1/2 kids half adults).

Greg as been doing this for a while so his classes are very well structured - being a former school teacher helps too as there was not a peep from the dozen kids present during the hour long presentation about the bronze age, showing various artifacts from axes to swords, explained the basic principle of sand casting, safety procedures etc. All of that was fun and interactive, despite standing outside in the cold.

Then everyone went on to choose a sword from a dozen templates in wood, ranging from khopesh to various celtic designs.I would have picked a Wilberton, but I was here as my son's helper who went for a khopesh.

Pick a box, a bucket of sand and off you go (see below, with templates removed from the box). Greg will make sure you do this right, bouncing from one table to the next. Then he went on to lit up the furnace (should mention at this stage that this class was the beginner friendly aluminium sword casting), and managed to pour about 25 swords in around an hour - all came out nicely defined, not a single miscast.

After that a few of us were entrusted with angle grinders to clean up the blades and refined edges etc.
Quick strap of leather on the grip and everybody was on their way (class took about 5 hours start to finish).

My son was thrilled by the whole experience, and so was I. Greg is super nice, very knowledgeable and obviously passionate about his topic - so much so that it's now his primary occupation and is now traveling from state to state making demos and doing classes all around the USA.

Also worth mentioning that the class was very cheap, especially considering how expensive casting classes usually are.

All in all it was the introduction I needed, and I'll be working with Greg on a few project in the future. I've pointing him to this forum and I hope he will register and chime in on this thread or others in the future.

In the meantime you can check his website for more info: https://swordcastingguy.com/ and FB page https://www.facebook.com/swordcastingguy/

Pics of the class below - and bear in mind that this khopesh was made by a 12 years old in a few hours (I could refine it's profile with files and belt grinder, but the point was first an foremost to cast it and its thick edge make it very safe for my son to carry around).

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